Graduation
by Nyaa-Neko
Summary: On the day she graduates from High School, Purin feels alone. Every other Mew seems to be paired off with a really great guy. Lucky for her, a certain alien decides to show up.


Graduation

_Purin looked to the sky. She was sitting outside of her doorstep, staring at the stars and thinking. What had happened? Was it all over?_

_"Oneeeeeeesama!" Purin sighed, got up, turned on her heel, and walked inside. Honcha was busy yelling to Heicha about something that they both thought was theirs. Purin just stared at the arguing duo, not really seeing what was in front of her._

_That was the only night in her entire life she didn't split up a dispute. The combined powers of Lucha, Hanacha, and Chancha did it. Purin sighed again, not really moving during all of her younger brothers and sisters' actions. She just walked outside again, still thinking._

_"I became a Mew Mew at age eight. We defeated Deep Blue, and I was still eight. About seven, eight, maybe nine months after I turned nine, everybody who was a threat was gone. I am now thirteen, and tomorrow is my fourteenth birthday. Why do I feel awful? I should be happy." Purin muttered to herself, staring at the starry sky. That night was very clear, and the sky was just dotted with white pricks of light. "Whenever I was sad, I always thought it was because I missed my parents. When I stopped being able to transform into Mew Purin, I thought it was that. Three months ago, when An Nin died, I generally think it's that. But..." Purin looked down, a tear plopping on her hand._

_"It's not that. I'm not the type to stay sad on something. I move on, regain a normal positive spirit." Purin sighed. "I don't dwell. But...he..." Purin walked into her room, where a bowl full of candy drops sat. A thin layer of dust covered it, but the candy was still good. Just in case. "He never came back."_

Purin Fong grinned happily with the rest of her graduating class. They were in the middle of the ceremony of leaving high school. She had almost done it. She even gave a speech, and everybody clapped. Now she just had to get her certificate, and wait. Then she could go to the party with all of her friends.

Purin glanced into the audience, and saw all of her friends. Minto, no longer eleven, had her hair down for the special event. It was still short, but it came down longer in blue-black waves. She sat watching the events, smiling back at Purin when she saw her friend staring at her. The twenty-one-year-old was lucky. When she was about fifteen, Kisshu finally got over Ichigo. They met up randomly, in a park one summer, and started talking. Almost five years after that day, they were engaged. They were going to be married in July, exactly five years after that day in the park.

Kisshu was sitting next to her, with his arm around Minto's shoulders. He still had his dark green hair in the same style, and his ears and golden eyes made him look different. However, Minto was able to make him agree to wear a suit for Purin's graduation, and they dressed up together.

Next to the happy couple was, of course, another happy couple. This time, Minto's best friend, Zakuro, was next to Keiichiro. Purin always thought of Zakuro as a teenager and Keiichiro as an adult, but it turned out they weren't too much apart in age. On that day, Zakuro just turned twenty-five and Keiichiro was just a few weeks away from being twenty-nine. Both had just started dating.

Zakuro and Keiichiro were now business partners as well. Zakuro's modeling evolved into a TV career, and Keiichiro was her manager as well as the manager of Cafe Mew Mew. Now Zakuro and Keiichiro, like Minto and Kisshu, were dressed up, Zakuro in a purple dress and Keiichiro in a suit with a purple tie. It was so cute, how they were color-coordinated.

Just behind them were Retasu and Ryou. Both were married, and Retasu, twenty-three, and Ryou, twenty-five, were as happy as could be. So happy, that Retasu had a swollen belly. The first Mew to have a child, Retasu's baby was expected to be born in the mid-to-late summer range, so she was really looking it. Nobody could wait to see if her finless porpoise genes would be hereditary, or even Ryou's cat genes. Other than that, both were looking very nice and healthy, Retasu in green and Ryou in pale yellow.

Two seats over were Ringo and Gato. The young woman in red and the young man in red had been dating for five years, surviving through a brake-up and finding each other again. Purin would have sighed. Two aliens stayed with a Mew Mew, both were pretty happy couples. Ringo and Gato had considered marriage, but Gato just had a couple of issues to get over.

Behind them were Berii and Meguro, and like Retasu and Ryou, they were married, but they were waiting to have kids. Berii still had long white-blonde hair, even at twenty-two. She, Ringo, and Ichigo, being the same age, were very close.

Speaking of Ichigo, she and Masaya sat next to them. They had married long ago, and were as in love as could be. Ichigo was now in a pink dress, and Masaya wore a neat, deep blue suit. Both had recently finished college in England, and were unsure where to live. Masaya's influence had turned Ichigo into an environmentalist, and the two's life goals consisted of saving endangered species. Recently they became involved with a project to try to extend the habitat of the sand cat, an endangered wildcat similar to Ichigo's cat specie, the iriomote wildcat.

And of course, in a line next to Aoyama Ichigo and Aoyama Masaya were her brothers and sisters, all looking very fidgety. The five of them were still as hyper as they were when they were younger, though they definitely looked older. All of them attended middle school, and were in their final year. The girls especially looked like their older sister, and all of them excelled in PE, gymnastics, and martial arts.

Purin stared sadly at her principal, not thinking of graduating. Ichigo was the last Mew Mew to stop being able to transform, transforming once when she was seventeen to save a feral cat from an earthquake. The cat now lived with them, and Ichigo was able to talk to him and understand him. That was the only thing left in terms of powers any of the former Mew Mews had.

The principal had then finished talking, and was calling the names of the graduating students. After awhile, they reached Purin's name. As she walked forward, a smile was plastered on her face as her friends cheered very loudly for her. She bowed, received her diploma, and walked back to her place in line.

"Wow, Purin-chan, I cannot believe you've finally left high school!" Chirped Minto, patting her friend's head.

Zakuro nodded, smiling softly and holding Keiichiro's hand. "I remember my graduation. I was the first Mew to leave high school..."

"And now I'm the last." Purin finished, giggling. Zakuro had gone to a very fancy private school, one of the tops in the country. When all of the Mews and people accompanying them came to her ceremony, all of the people from the school asked if they were lost. Minto was furious, and took it as a personal insult. Purin could remember Minto going on and on before it started about how this mocked her high status as a wealthy member of the community. Of course, she shut up the instant she saw Zakuro, and watched the model with sparkling eyes filled with admiration throughout the entire thing. At the time, Minto, age fifteen, was still more of a fan than a best friend to Zakuro, but that changed over the years. Minto even sort of played matchmaker for the wolf Mew and Keiichiro. Sort of.

"Isn't it nice that everybody was able to attend-KYAA!" Retasu nearly fell down, clutching her swollen belly. Ryou and Gato, luckily, were close by and caught her before she hurt herself and her unborn child. "Waah! I'm so sorry! I felt a kick, and it caught me by surprise, and I almost fell over. I don't want to hurt my child! I'm really sorry!" Blurted Retasu, still quite the klutz. Being pregnant and due in about three months didn't exactly help, either. Ryou smiled softly at her, but kept a firm yet loving arm around her shoulders in case it happened again.

Kisshu smirked. "Yeah, Pai said to congratulate you for him." Pai, who had already married an alien woman named Keeki, but she was feeling ill, and Pai stayed home with her. "Pai and Keeki-san were sorry they couldn't come."

Berii forced her way to the front of the little mob, towing Meguro as she went. "People! There's food! FREE CAKE!" Berii held up a slice of cake triumphantly.

"Cake? Cake? You know...cake sounds really, really good right now..." Retasu's eyes glared at the table.

Ryou sighed, and walked with his pregnant wife over to the table. Things with sugar must really taste so good to a woman feeding for two.

As the group, headed by Honcha, Heicha, Chancha, Lucha, and Hanacha who pretty much lived off of food that made them even more hyper, mainly sugar, merged with the surrounding people around the refreshment table, Purin sighed.

_Here I am, done with graduation. In an hour there's a party, which sounds really fun and my friends and family will be there, but I really don't feel like gong. He's not here. It's not fair. Kisshu stayed here even when Ichigo "dumped" him, and became their friend. He even stayed long enough to fall for Minto, and she and him never even seemed like a couple when we were Mews! Ringo and Gato are thinking about marriage, but both are too nervous to propose to the other. And they didn't get along at ALL at the start! And Pai, even though he didn't get with a Mew Mew, met Keeki on his home planet, and VISITS! He VISITS! He even babysat for me once with Keeki, and I got to see a movie with Ichigo and Minto. But who hasn't even been brought up? The only one who was even friendly, since Kisshu was kinda rude to Ichigo, never comes, never gets mentioned, when he PROMISED he'd come back! Even just for more-_

"Hey."

Purin froze, not turning around to see who spoke. She was pretty sure she knew who it was, even if the voice had deepened to a more manly tone. The Chinese-Japanese young woman was unsure, however, that he would come back so many years later, without doing anything remotely like that for what, ten years?

No. She would not turn around. She didn't know what to do if it was he, and she didn't know what to do if it wasn't. She really didn't know what to do if she stayed the way she was, her back to him, either. However, she had the fleeting thought that if she didn't move, maybe he wouldn't notice her, and go away.

"Um...congratulations? On, um, exiting your planet's basic school system?" Minimal knowledge of Earth. Most likely him. Or possibly just another alien. Purin thought for a moment if it was Pai, come to give his congratulations in person if Keiki was feeling remotely okay, but he had a different voice. Pai's voice was soft, deep, and suave. This voice, though still soft and pleasant sounding, had a sort of childish nervousness in it, and sounded higher and possibly scratchier than that of the older alien.

"Thank...you..." Mumbled Purin. She mentally smacked herself. Vocal and cultural reflexes were so overrated.

"Purin, are-um, Purin-san, are you going to ignore me?" Purin said nothing as he continued, trying to be as polite as he could. After all, they were grown up now. "Because I can understand if you are. You probably should. That day, you know, when Deep Blue-dono was disposed of by Ichigo-san? How I acted like a brat to you, and you were almost crying? I said I would come back for a candy drop, since I was too nervous to say I wanted to visit you anyway. I-I never came back either. Not even for some stupid candy." Purin couldn't hold it in anymore. Not that she ever could hold much in the way of blurting things out anyway, but...

She spun around and threw a very, very cold glare at the surprised alien. Yup, it was him. Good. Now she could give him almost ten years of hurt on her part back to him. That idiot.

"Taruto-san, I can't believe you!" Shrieked Purin as Taruto cringed from her anger. "Do you know that every single night I waited? I looked at the stars every single night, wasting my life away just waiting for you! I even had a huge jar of those 'stupid candies' that I thought were my only way of seeing you again! I never touched them! They have all this dust on them because they were never moved! I put them there ten years ago, when we defeated Deep Blue, and they were never moved. Why? Because I was so hopeful you would come back! At least for a candy drop!"

Taruto sighed sadly. His huge brown eyes, which Purin noticed matched his hair, stared at hers. His hair, her eyes glancing back at it, was in the same manner it always was. But other than that, and his large ears, he completely blended in. Instead of his odd alien attire he wore a suit for the occasion, and she noticed in his hand was a small black velvet box.

_I wonder what that's for..._ Purin thought as the trait found in many Fongs came to her surface-the fact she was rather easily distracted. Especially by things that were unknown, like a box or a button on Minto's mansion's wall (which she found out the hard way activated fire sprinklers).

"Purin-san, I'm sorry," Purin's golden eyes widened. He was apologizing? Now she couldn't yell at him anymore! "I was really nervous, and like you, I had school. Plus there was this girl alien-"

"What? You had me agonizing over you for ten years just so you could get with some alien girl and-" Purin was cut off by Taruto's hand in the air.

"I had to tell her to go for some other guy, I was taken. It took awhile, because it was an pre-decided couple. But after some long arguments, I figured I didn't have to stick around to apologize to my parents and her family."

Purin was quiet. Taruto had to shake off another girl...and then he came here...

"But that's no excuse." Taruto held out the small black box. "I know this won't solve much of anything, and if you never want to talk to me again, I completely understand. So this can be an apology present, a graduation present, or something you'll throw away, but here."

He flicked open the box, and Purin's eyes widened at the shiny object inside.

_Ooh...shiny...gaah!_ Purin shook her head to rid herself of the random thought. "Taruto-san, um, it's really...shiny..." Purin mentally glared at herself for allowing her mouth to let that out. _Wow Purin, you sure know how to thank a guy. 'Shiny?' What in the galaxy was that?_

Inside the box, which had now identified itself as a jewelry box, held a stunning golden chain necklace with a small pendant of a candy drop that reflected all light that hit it. It was so beautiful, and the pendant appeared like a diamond.

"Um, Taruto-san, random question, but what's the pendant made out of?" Purin asked, tilting her head as curiosity killed the monkey. Her eyes just stared at the lovely necklace.

Taruto grinned sheepishly. "It's crystal. I couldn't afford anything better. If I could've gotten that Earth stone that is very hard and sought after I would've, but you wouldn't believe how expensive those little rocks are!"

For the first time that night, Purin truly smiled. "That's okay, it's still really pretty. Thanks."

Taruto slipped the necklace out of the box, and fastened it around her neck. The pendant fell high, and glittered in the light of the buildings surrounding it.

"Only the prettiest stone for the prettiest girl I know. Well, you know, within budget."

"You'd better be talking about the necklace, then." Purin giggled, her golden hair waving around in the four braids. Her hairstyle, like Taruto's, had not changed either.

Taruto chuckled, and slipped an arm around her shoulders. "Don't worry...can I call you Purin-chan?"

Purin smiled, and made a very fast decision. After a quick kiss that made his face freeze into that of surprise, she grabbed his hand. "Yeah, Taru Taru. You call me that." Taruto groaned playfully, and squeezed her hand. Purin smiled softly, than wrapped her arms around him. He was there, finally there. "I missed you."

She felt his arms around her also, completing the hug. "I missed you too, Purin-chan. I really did." Another kiss, but this one was a little longer. "I-I think I love you."

Purin giggled, and blushed as she saw Taruto's cheeks turn red. "I love you too, NA NO DA!" She all but yelled into his ears, bursting into laughter. Pretty soon he was laughing, and the two of them just couldn't stop.

_Yes, this is what I was waiting for. This, this is love. I can just be around him and feel happy! I said 'na no da' again. This must be a sign I'm feeling better. Now I understand how Ichigo could always go loopy over Masaya, 'cause before I know it, I'll be crazy about Taruto! Yup, this is-_

_THIS ISN'T PERFECT!_

"Taruto," Purin began, her eyes growing hard and dark. This was serious, very serious.

Taruto's smile disappeared. "What is it, Purin-chan? What's wrong?"

"This is my graduation..."

"Yeah."

"There's supposed to be a party..."

"Yeah, I think."

"So..."

"So what?"

"SO I NEED CAKE! SUGAR! I NEED TO BE MORE HYPER-CRAZY, NA NO DA!" Purin laughed loudly as she threw her arms into the air. All she needed now was a big ball to run around on, and she'd be the same happy-go-lucky, hyper girl she was when she was a Mew Mew. But a sugar high would definitely be a must, since she was sort of like on a permanent sugar high when she was younger.

Taruto laughed again. She really had him going, like something was actually wrong. Well, this was Purin. Not the type of person to stay sad. She needed to be happy and hyper.

"Then let's go." He grabbed her hand, and they entered the party as a couple, not as two individuals divided, and it had such a calming effect, to know you were one of a pair.

Before five younger siblings tackled "oniichan", then it was chaos from small children. Pretty soon, all of the Mew group and friends were interrogating Purin and Taruto, even though they knew that the last Mew to get paired off finally did.

Oh, and yes, Purin got her cake.

All seven slices.

Not including a side dish of tart.


End file.
